312 



GOSSAN 



GOTHAM 



whether for the mere enjoyment of an aerial ex- 

 cursion, or in order to shift from place to place, 

 is not clear, although the latter supposition is, on 

 the whole, the most probable. The threads of 

 gossamer are so delicate that a single one cannot 

 be seen unless the sun shines on it ; but, being 

 driven about by the wind, they often become 

 beaten together into thicker threads and flakes. 

 They are often to be felt on the face when they 

 are scarcely visible. The spiders which produce 

 these threads shoot them out from their spinnerets, 

 a viscid fluid being ejected with great force, which 

 presently becomes a thread ; sometimes several 

 such threads are produced at once in a radiating 

 form, and these, oeing caught by the ascending 

 current of heated air, are borne upwards, the spider 

 along with them. It has been said that the spider 

 has even some power of guiding in the air the 

 web by which it is wafted up (see SPIDERS). The 

 etymology has been much disputed. According to 

 Skeat, gossamer, the Middle English gossamer, is 

 goose-summer, the summer meaning summer-film. 

 Another derivation is from God and summer, the 

 latter word being from the Romance samarra, ' a 

 skirt,' from the legend that gossamer is shreds of 

 the Virgin Mary's shroud, which she cast away when 

 she was taken up to heaven. 



Gossan, a mining term for oxide of iron and 

 quartz. See IRON. 



Gosse, PHILIP HENRY, naturalist, was born at 

 Worcester, 10th April 1810, and brought up at Poole. 

 In 1827 he went to Newfoundland as a clerk, and 

 was afterwards in turns farmer in Canada, school- 

 master in Alabama, and professional naturalist in 

 Jamaica. Returning to England, he published in 

 1840 the Canadian Naturalist, and after another 

 stay in the West Indies settled in England to a busy 

 life of letters. His early experiences and observa- 

 tions supplied the material for his popular books, 

 the richly illustrated Birds of Jamaica ( 1851 ) and 

 A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica (1851). His 

 Naturalist's Ramble on the Devonshire Coast (1853), 

 Aquarium (1854), and Manual of Marine Zoology 

 (1855-56) inspired Charles Kingsley's Glaucus, and 

 opened up a new branch of science to Englishmen. 

 Gosse was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1 856, and over sixty monographs in its Proceedings 

 are from his pen. His best-known work, tfie 

 Romance of Natural History, appeared in 1860-62. 

 Later and more severely scientific works Avere his 

 Actinologia Britannica (1860) and the Prehensile 

 Armature of the Papilionidce (1885). In 1886 he 

 placed in the hands of Dr C. T. Hudson the notes 

 and drawings of a lifetime on the microscopic study 

 of the Rotifera. Mr Gosse spent the last thirty 

 years of his life in a retired South Devon village, 

 and died 23d August 1888. EDMUND WILLIAM 

 GOSSE, his only son, was born in London, September 

 21, 1849, was educated in Devonshire, and became 

 at eighteen an assistant-librarian at the British 

 Museum, in 1875 translator to the Board of 

 Trade. He travelled in Scandinavia and Holland, 

 and made himself master of the languages of these 

 conn-tries. In 1884 he succeeded Mr Leslie Stephen 

 as Clark lecturer in English literature at Tnnity 

 College, Cambridge, a post from which he retired 

 in 1889, having four years before received the 

 honorary degree of M.A. from the university. 

 During 1884-85 he lectured in Boston, at 

 Harvard and Yale colleges, and in Baltimore and 

 New York. Mr Gosse has tried various forms of 

 verse, and possesses many of the qualities of the 

 genuine poet. Among his writings in verse are 

 Madrigals, Songs, and Sonnets (1870); On Viol 

 and Flute, lyrical poems (1873); King Erik, a 

 tragedy (1876); The Unknown Lover, a drama 

 (1878) ; New Poems ( 1879) ; and Firdausi in Exile, 



and other Poems (1886). His chief writings in 

 prose are in the field of literary criticism : Northern 

 Studies, a series of essays on Scandinavian and 

 Dutch literature (1879); Gray, in 'English Men 

 of Letters' (1882); Seventeenth-century Studies, 

 on Lodge, Webster, Rowlands, Herrick, Crashaw, 

 Cowley, Etheredge, and Otway ( 1883 ) ; From 

 Shakespeare to Pope ( 1885 ) ; Life of Congreve ( 1 888 ) ; 

 Hittory of Eighteenth-Century Literature (1889); 

 Critical Kit-Kats ( 1896 ) ; and a History of Modern 

 English Literature (1897). Besides these he con- 

 tributed many critical essays towards English Poets 

 (1880-81 ), edited English Odes (1881 ), and a fault- 

 less complete edition of Gray (4 vols. 1884). 



Gossypium. See COTTON. 



Got, FRANCOIS JULES EDMOND, actor, was born 

 at Lignerolles in 1822, entered the Conservatoire in 

 1841, and in 1844 made his debut at the Comedie 

 Francaise in a servant's part. He rapidly pushed 

 his way to the front rank, and was recognised as 

 one of the finest comedians of his day. From 1850 

 to 1866 he was a member of the Comedie Francaise, 

 playing with success such parts as Figaro in the 

 older comedy, but in general regarded as the main- 

 stay of the new dramatic school. In 1866, with the 

 emperor's special permission, he appeared at the 

 Odeon as Andre Lagarde in Augier's Contagion, and 

 organised a company to carry the play through 

 France. He repeatedly played in London. In 1881 

 he received the cross of the Legion of Honour. 

 His most finished performances were as Giboyer in 

 Augier's Effrontes and Fils de Giboyer, and as 

 Bernard in Les Fourchambault. He died in 1901. 



Gotha, a town of Germany, alternately with 

 Coburg the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Coburg- 

 Gotha, stands 31 miles W. by S. of Weimar, on 

 the northern outskirt of the Thuringian Forest, 

 and is a handsome, well-built town, with line 

 parks. The principal public building is the castle 

 of Friedenstein, built in 1648 on the site of a 

 former one, on a rock 78 feet above the town ; 

 it contains a library of 200,000 volumes and 6000 

 MSS., and a very valuable numismatic collection. 

 The new museum (1878), in the Renaissance 

 style, now harbours the picture-gallery, in which 

 Cranach, Van Eyck, Holbein, Rubens, and Rem- 

 brandt are represented ; a very excellent cabinet 

 of engravings ; a natural history collection ; col- 

 lections of Egyptian, Roman, Greek, and German 

 antiquities ; and a Japanese and Chinese museum. 

 A new observatory was built in 1874. Gotha 

 is an active industrial town, the principal manu- 

 factures being shoes, fire-engine pipes, sugar, and 

 toys. Gotha sausages have a widespread celeb- 

 rity. Several hundreds of designers, engravers, 

 printers, and colourers of maps are employed here 

 in the large geographical establishment of Justus 

 Perthes (q.v. ), who also publishes the Almanack 

 (q.v.) de Gotha. Pop. ( 1875) 22,928 ; (1890) 29,134. 

 See Beck, Geschichte der Studt Gotha (1870). 



Gotha, DUCHY OF. See SAXON DUCHIES. 



Gotham, TALES OF THE MEN OF, a collection 

 of jests, in whicli the people of Gotham, a village 

 in Nottinghamshire (7 miles SSW. of Notting- 

 ham), are represented as saying and doing the 

 most foolish things. These tales are similar to the 

 Asteia, or facetiae, ascribed, without authority, to 

 the oth-century Alexandrian philosopher Hierocles. 

 The stories seem to have been first printed about the 

 middle of the 16th century, under the title of Merrie 

 Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham, gathered, together 

 by A. B., of Phisicke Doctour ; but they had been 

 orally current in the time of Henry VI., reference 

 being made to ' the foles of Gotam ' in the Towneley 

 miracle-plays, the only known MS. of which was 

 written about that period. The initials 'A. B.' of 



